Innovation is the way forward for technology companies to stay ahead of the competition and remain viable in the market, says Kevin Ho, country manager for Malaysia, AMD Far East Ltd. Lim Yeh Ern finds out more.

Ho points out that AMD is continuously innovating its products to combine the portability factor with visual and processing performance.

Q: Tell us about your role at AMD.

A: As country manager of AMD Far East Malaysia, I’m tasked with strengthening AMD’s position locally. This includes developing business relationships with customers and partners, and managing and growing AMD’s business channels, original equipment manufacturer accounts and the Government sector market.

My immediate charter will be to build solid partnerships with all of AMD’s channel partners and ensure that growth and profitability targets are achieved. Part of this task involves augmenting partner capability to ensure they are well-equipped and knowledgeable about AMD’s products.

Q: What sets AMD products apart from competitors’?

A: AMD is dedicated to collaborating with customers and partners in ways that ignite the next-generation of technology solutions at work, at home and at play. AMD has just launched a campaign under the tagline The Future is Fusion.

At the heart of the campaign is the Fusion brand concept, which is a unique energy created by connecting AMD people and technology with those of its partners. Fusion is an AMD working philosophy which marries innovation with collaboration.

Q: What’s next for the notebook computer?

A: We launched our latest notebook platform in July. Codenamed Puma, the platform features new AMD Turion X2 Ultra dual-core mobile processors with ATI Radeon HD 3000 series graphics for superior 3-D (three-dimensional) performance and HD (high-definition) image quality and industry-leading wireless for greater throughput and range.

Formulated in accordance with consumer demands, Puma enhances business productivity and provides users the ultimate in HD visual performance on the go. At AMD, we are aware that mobility is fast becoming a necessity, so we are continuously innovating our products to combine the portability factor with visual and processing performance.

This platform represents a significant step forward in AMD’s drive to merge computing and graphics capabilities, eventually achieving silicon-level integration of CPU (central processing unit) and GPU (graphics processing unit) technology with APU (accelerated processing unit) which is a part of our platform expected in the second half of 2009, codenamed Shrike.

Q: How does AMD support the “green IT” initiative?

A: We are firm believers of green IT, especially in power-saving. In fact, AMD is the founding sponsor of the Green Grid, a global consortium responding to the growing requirements for best practices in data centre power management.

The Green Grid believes that saving power is not just good for the bottom line but also good for the environment. As the founding sponsor, AMD is providing IT professionals who are seeking to lower the overall consumption of power in data centres around the globe a venue to share best practices in data centre power management.

Q: Where do you see AMD in five years?

A: As a company dedicated to collaborating with customers and partners, AMD is constantly evaluating chipsets, platforms or even architecture, and working with ecosystem partners to bring innovation to the market from time to time.

In future, we hope to still be at the forefront in delivering to customers, enterprise or end users the technology products that they need.

With exciting products in the pipeline, you will see more innovations from us as we enable greater technology fuelled by the dreams of our customers and inspired by the world in which we work, live and play.